Museum receives $7 million for major habitat exhibit

southsidefront150TimMurray

/ San Diego Natural History Museum

/ San Diego Natural History Museum

The biggest one-time grant ever received by the San Diego Natural History Museum will be used to construct a new permanent exhibit about the major habitats of Southern California, museum officials said Monday.

The $7 million state grant, made official last week, will pay for the 8,000-square-foot installation, which is supposed to be completed for Balboa Park's centennial celebrations in 2015. It's expected to eventually boost visitor numbers, membership sales and the bottom line for the museum, which is trying to emerge from the recession like most other institutions.

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Money came from a 2006 voter-approved initiative called Proposition 84, or the Safe Drinking Water Bond. It allocated $93 million statewide for nature education and research, and groups filed requests for projects worth roughly 10 times that much.

Other local recipients were the Buena Vista Audubon Society in Oceanside, San Diego city and Santee. They were given a total of about $600,000 for outdoor education efforts such as interpretive signs and expanding a nature center. The natural history museum won one of the five largest awards, along with major institutions in Los Angeles County, Sacramento, Orange County and the Bay Area.

"This is a huge win for the city as the exhibition that this grant will fund is going to have a lasting and vital impact on how we view our local habitats," said Hallie Shere, a spokeswoman for the museum, which counts about 400,000 visitors each year.

More exhibits ahead

By 2017, officials at the San Diego Natural History Museum anticipate completion of more permanent exhibitions. They are:

-- Open Ocean: Visitors will journey alongside a full-size blue whale in the lobby atrium while learning how the spinning Earth stirs the oceans and creates habitats and food for creatures that feed a complex web of life that includes people.

-- Exploring Biodiversity: A 3,800-square-foot exhibition will be designed to bring the museum's research division to life through collections and social media.

-- Research Library: Subtitled "Extraordinary Ideas from Ordinary People: A History of Citizen Science," this 1,500-square-foot exhibition will illuminate the contributions of citizen naturalists and invite visitors to join the movement.

-- Mineralogy Hall: Visitors will learn about San Diego County’s rich history of gold and gem mining, along with the geological processes that create local gems such as quartz, tourmaline, blue topaz, pink kunzite and orange garnet.

Michael Hager, the museum’s president and CEO, said "Habitat Journey/Viaje por los habitats" builds on the institution's first permanent exhibition, "Fossil Mysteries," which explores evolution, ecology and extinction. It opened in 2006 and covers nearly 10,000 square feet.

The habitat isplays were conceived about a decade ago as a companion to Fossil Mysteries. They will cover bio-regions such as the Colorado River, the California desert, the mountains and the coastal zone. The idea is to showcase the connections between the regions and explain why San Diego is often described as a “global biodiversity hotspot."

“The animals and plants and environmental challenges of each ecosystem will be revealed in Habitat Journey/Viaje por los habitats, inspiring students, residents, and visitors to go outside and explore,” Hager said. “With their renewed sense of place, we believe people -- including those who will be our future leaders -- will make decisions that will help to preserve our quality of life.”

At the non-profit California Chaparral Institute in Escondido, director Richard Halsey said the new exhibit would help San Diegans better understand their natural environment.

"We have really been lacking that in San Diego," he said. "Basically, most people think of habitat as forest and if you are lucky, tide pools. Everything in between doesn't count."

The San Diego Natural History Museum is the second-oldest scientific institution in California and the third-oldest west of the Mississippi. Founded in 1874 by a small group of citizen scientists, the museum’s mission is to interpret the natural world through research, education and exhibits; to promote understanding of the evolution and diversity of Southern California and the peninsula of Baja California, Mexico; and to inspire respect for the environment.

"We feel honored and vindicated that our vision has been endorsed," said Ann Laddon, vice president of of institutional advancement for the museum.

She said the state grant is almost exclusively for construction costs, not operating expenses. However, Habitat Journey will allow the museum to stop spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on traveling exhibits to fill out its second floor.

Laddon is expecting other benefits. "It absolutely will serve to help our bottom line by attracting a wider audience that will be attracted to our mission," she said. "We hope that we will be able to leverage this exceptional grant to seek funding for additional core exhibits."